Lorde, the Grammy-winning pop star behind hits like “Royals,” “Green Light” and “Homemade Dynamite,” is facing backlash after she was called out in a Washington Post ad for canceling her upcoming concert in Israel.
The New Zealand singer allegedly canceled the show to protest violence against Palestinians.
Prominent Rabbi Shmuley Boteach took out the full-page ad in the Washington Post to inform readers about Lorde’s decision.
New Zealand singer Lorde has been called a “bigot” in a full-page newspaper advertisement in The Washington Post for cancelling her concert in #Israel. pic.twitter.com/6wS1bwZzJv
— The Sydney News (@thesydneynews) January 1, 2018
The spread features the singer photoshopped in front of a scene where men run from chaos and wreckage with children in their arms while the Israeli flag waves behind them. Its headline, “Lorde And New Zealand Ignore Syria To Attack Israel,” is a nod to New Zealand’s recent request that the United States revokes its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. New Zealand was one of 128 UN countries that voted to condemn the United States’ decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem last month.
The ad also criticizes a New Zealand-sponsored UN resolution that condemned Israeli settlements last year.
Boteach claims that Lorde’s position against violence is one-sided as she has not canceled any of her upcoming concerts in Russia, which has its own plight with humanitarian rights and allies heavily with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. His ad urges readers to “Tell Lorde and her fellow bigots that Jew-hatred has no place” in modern times.
In a short video in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, Rabbi Boteach defended his ad and doubled down on his message. “Our full page ad was to protest Lorde’s bigotry in singling out Israel for a boycott. Israel’s not perfect of course, but compared to any country facing a similar threat it is arguably the most just and most humanitarian country in the world.”
This isn’t the first time that Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has gone after public figures this way. In 2015, he took out an ad in the New York Times to criticize then-President Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice for ignoring Rwandan genocides in 1994.